The Baal Shem Tov (Besht)

Israel ben Eliezer, Master of the Good Name: healer, amulet-writer, ecstatic — who democratized Luria: the sparks are not only in the liturgy but in your horse, your bread, your business trip; devekut is for everyone, joy is the method, and the simple person's Psalm outranks the scholar's pride. Hasidism — the largest mystical mass-movement in Jewish history — unfolds from his kitchen. His one surviving letter describes an ascent to the palace of the Messiah: "When will you come?" — "When your wellsprings spread outward."